Financial Statement Preparation

Professional Insight Into Business Performance

You worked hard to build your business. Carte Hall Certified Public Accountants invites you to draw on our knowledge, skill, and support to continue adding value to your organization. We offer the expertise to help you get to the next level.

As your organization grows, it becomes increasingly important that your financial statements be accurate, understandable, and completed in a timely manner. They must identify and measure essential financial information about your business and communicate it well. These reports serve as the foundation upon which you, your financial institution, investors, and partners use to gauge business performance and assess relative financial strength. Your financial statements are also the basis for making many critical management decisions that will affect your business. You may be required to provide financial statements to regulatory agencies, creditors, owners, stockholders, and business partners. Carte Hall Certified Public Accountants offers three levels of financial statement services to help ensure our clients are able to manage their financial affairs with confidence.

• Preparations
• Compilations
• Reviews

Preparations

Basic Prepared Financial Statements
Our basic financial statement preparation service is primarily designed for internal use to help you analyze the financial strength and performance of your business on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. These informal statements can be extremely useful for business owners interested in gaining valuable insight for future management purposes. In some cases, a basic financial statement may meet the documentation criteria to obtain a small business loan and you are free to share them with whomever you like; however, because our Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) prepare these statements directly from records provided by you and no analysis is involved, we must include notification on each page of the financial statement that “no assurance is provided.”

-Intended for business owner use to assist with managing the business (similar to what an in-house controller or chief financial officer would provide for management in a larger company)
-May fulfill some lenders’ documentation requirements for small loans
-No formal report issued on the financial statements

Balance Sheets – Shareholder Assets, Owner’s Equity, and Company Liabilities
Income Statements – Detail Sources of Net Profit/Revenue and Loss/Expenses
Cash Flow Statements – Detail Sources of Cash Inflow and Outflow

Compilations

CPA-Compiled Financial Reports

Compiled financial statements are similar to basic financial statements but they offer an additional degree of confidence. The CPA will determine and declare whether or not he is independent from ownership, management, and other circumstances in relation to your business, disclosing any such impairments. These statements are primarily intended to serve as documentation to assist potential lenders with examining the financial strength and past performance of your business to determine risk. Compiled financial statements can be useful for securing approval for a small to moderate line of credit, leasing or financing with significant collateral in place, and preparing specific financial information for presentation.

While compilations are prepared directly from records provided by you, our Certified Public Accountants read the materials you provide within a specified reporting framework and provide a statement that your financial statements are free of obvious material misstatements and that they generally appear appropriate; however because our CPAs do not verify the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, or otherwise gather evidence for the purposes of expressing an opinion regarding completeness or accuracy, assurance is not provided.

-Intended for use by lenders and other outside parties who may appreciate the business’s association with a CPA without requiring a level of assurance on the accuracy of financial statements
-Typically appropriate when initial or lower amounts of financing or credit are sought or significant collateral is in place
-Compilation reports are issued by a CPA

Balance Sheets – Shareholder Assets, Owner’s Equity, and Company Liabilities
Income Statements – Detail Sources of Net Profit/Revenue and Loss/Expenses
Cash Flow Statements – Detail Sources of Cash Inflow and Outflow

Certified Independent Reviews

CPA-Reviewed Financial Reports
Review services on financial statements provide a base level of “limited assurance” on your financial statements. These are intended to provide the user with a level of comfort on their accuracy. Our independent CPAs perform analytical procedures, make inquiries, perform reconciliations, and undertake other procedures as necessary to achieve this. A review statement is appropriate for most growing businesses. Because it must include certain disclosures, a review may serve as documentation for business owners seeking more advanced financing and higher lines of credit. Reviews are also useful for those seeking greater confidence in their financial statements for the purpose of evaluating results and making key business decisions.

In order to perform a review, your independent CPA must understand your industry, accounting principles, and general practices. He must also obtain knowledge about you, your business, and the accounting principles and practices that you use in a manner sufficient to identify areas in the financial statements where it is more likely that material misstatements may arise. The CPA will issue a formal report which includes a conclusion as to whether, based on the review, he is aware of any material modifications that should be made to the financial statements in order for them to be in accordance with the applicable financial reporting framework.

-Intended to provide lenders and other outside parties with a basic level of assurance on the accuracy of financial statements
-Typically appropriate as a business grows and is seeking larger and more complex levels of financing and credit
-Formal review reports are issued by a CPA

Balance Sheets – Shareholder Assets and Equity vs. Company Liabilities
Income Statements – Sources of Net Profit and Loss (Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual)
Cash Flow Statements – Sources of Cash Inflow and Outflow (Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual)
Shareholders’ Equity Statements – Highlights Changes In Dividends, Retained Earnings, Assets, Investments for Growth, and Other Components of Interest
Targeted Financial Presentations – Statements Indicating Changes In Capital, Investments, Inventory, Debt, Financing, and Other Economic Performance Over Time

Please note that a review is substantially narrower in scope than an audit, does not involve obtaining an understanding of your business’s internal control, an assessment of fraud risk, testing accounting records through inspection, observation, outside confirmation or the examination of source documents or other procedures ordinarily performed in an audit.

Contact Carte Hall Certified Public Accountants

health of your business, wish to regularly monitor your business revenue, or would like assistance with the preparation of a formal certified report, you can trust our financial experts to prepare your business’s financial statements. Your future success depends on reliable access to skilled and confident financial counsel, advice, and analysis – and that is what we offer. Our proven track record and passion to personally cater to every client truly sets us apart – and helps our clients’ businesses thrive. Call to schedule an appointment at: (304) 637-2369.